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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: adf on Monday 24 November 14 18:28 GMT (UK)
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Help!
If anyone can decipher the coded writing on this potcard, I'd be most grateful. The postcard was written by my Great Grandfather x 2 (in 1873) to his sister Lizzie who lived in Cosheston Wales. His father was a stonemason, so the Pigpen code may have played a part, but this code has me stumped.
Any code breakers out there?
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Any chance of a clearer scan?
I think there's enough there to break it, but I can't clearly distinguish all the characters.
Mike
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Good evening,
I don't think this is pigpen, that is based on squares and arrow heads. Where was the card sent from, did he work abroad at any time?
John915
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Mike,
Try this lightened image. I have a larger file, but it was too big to upload.
John,
It seems to have elements of pigpen, but frustratingly different. George was an English Professor living in Luton, Beds. At one point, he did teach in Marseille, France.
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Back again,
It looks very similar to Demotic writing or Heilatic writing. Both were used in Egypt a few hundred years ago.
John915
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John,
I jumped to the conclusion that pigpen was the basis due to George's father being a stonemason in Cosheston.
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Good evening,
You say he was a professor of English, is it known whether he had any other language interests?
John915
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And again,
For those who don't remember pigpen, upper case had square corners, lower case rounded.
John915
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John,
I have no information to suggest George had other language interests, although he must have had an interest in other languages.
Andy
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How fascinating! I did a search looking for images of similar script and found a website that can probably help called omniglot.com. I've spent a good while browsing and it's rather interesting. There's a forum there where you could post your postcard, I think you'd stand a good chance of finding someone who can decipher for you :)
Heather
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Heather,
I'll head over to Omniglot and see if anyone has ideas. Thanks for the link. I'll report back if anything comes to light.
Andy
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Some of it looks like Tolkein writing.
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Luckily the postcard was before Tolkien was born. Otherwise, I'd be totally out of my depth. :)
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Luckily the postcard was before Tolkien was born. Otherwise, I'd be totally out of my depth. :)
If the postcard was written in 1913, as it appears to have been, Tolkien would have been 21 years old.
Sadly, it's not any of Tolkien's scripts though. If it had been, I could have read it, which says far too much about me. ;D
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A quick note:
The postcard was actually written on October 19, 1873. I know it looks confusing, the way it's written. George was born in 1843 and died in 1911.